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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Long overdue but well worth the wait, 7 Jun 2002
Having spent 12 years or so looking out for a CD re-issue of these two albums (which I have on vinyl but have nothing to play them on) it's great to see that they've finally been resurrected. They represent Toyah's earliest recordings, before she became commercially successful, and the general style is sci-fi flavoured prog rock with a hint of punk beat. Both albums are dark, bleak, experimental, creative and startlingly original.If you're a fan of songs like 'It's A Mystery' and 'I Want to be Free' then you may find these albums a little bit weird - they are quite different from her later albums. But if you like music which is slightly weird then this is about as good as it gets. Toyah's training as an actress enables her to do things with her voice which other singers would never even have thought of, and the music combines melodic synth lines with a gritty, thumping bass which is quite unlike anything else you're likely to have heard. Both albums have stood the test of time really well. This re-issue is also very good value for money, with two worthwhile bonus tracks on each album. Sheep Farming in Barnet is such a mature and complex album that it's incredible to think Toyah was only 21 when she created it. The vocals are incredibly expressive, and while the analogue synths place it in a distinct late-70s/early-80s niche it still manages to sound fresh and contemporary. Styles range from thunderously energetic, such as Our Movie and Race Through Space, through the more ethereal Elusive Stranger, to the downright weird, such as the brilliant and disturbing Victims of the Riddle (Vivisection) which represents animal suffering in musical form with a hallucinogenic whirl of electronic beats, disembodied synth fragments and bizarre vocal squeals. The Blue Meaning is worth having just for the magnificent Ieya, which showcases Toyah's unusual repertoire of high-pitched squeaks, but the rest of the album is also excellent, and perhaps a tiny bit heavier than Sheep Farming. The token 'weird' track is Spaced Walking, with its very spaced out 'helium' vocal, while Ghosts has an addictive pounding energy and Love Me is haunting, heartfelt and beautifully strange. I still don't know why these two brilliant albums have been unavailable for so long, but I hope they will now find a new generation of fans and belatedly get the appreciation they deserve.
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See all 13 tracks on this disc
